Conflicts In Utopia Essay

2294 words - 10 pages

Armed with starry-eyed, pacifist idealism and a thirst for finding the truth, the Transcendentalists of the Era of Reform sought to reject the token values of society and to fulfill their potentials as reasonable, worthy individuals. They were an idealistic and refreshingly egalitarian group of intellectuals in a world of slavery and budding industrialism, embodying an odd mixture of praise for the individual and desire to unite. The concept of the individual was the supreme ideology as far as the Transcendentalists were concerned; they thought that in order to rise above the base and unenlightened society, individuals should seek their own truths, resisting the urge to conform to common ...view middle of the document...

The goals of each type of commune frequently overlapped; the Transcendentalist drive to go beyond traditional society, to search within the individual for truth, and to reject conformity was quite present in the formations of both Owen's and Fourier's theories. Not only did the Owenites and Fourierists wish to improve upon society within their own lives, but they also "embraced communalism as the form by which--and to which--they hoped to convert all of society" (Pitzer 161). The structure of society, from the basic family unit--husband, wife, children--to class structure to the economy, was the focus of the Transcendentalists' reforms and rebellion.An emphasis on reform of the basic family unit was common to both Owenism and Fourierism, though their approaches were slightly different. As John Humphrey Noyes wrote about Owenism and Fourierism, "the main idea of both was the enlargement of home--the extension of family union beyond the little man-and-wife circle to large corporations" (23). Owen envisioned a community in which adults would share the responsibility of childcare and in which adults in unhappy marriages could much more easily divorce and remarry (Pitzer 94, 119). The more radical Fourier almost entirely rejected the idea of monogamy and instead embraced the concept of sexual freedom. When their communal blueprints were actually brought to life, however, the experiments yielded the very nuclear family the theorists rejected. Owen's liberal views towards marriage simply led to the spreading of rumors of lewdness among the unchanged members of society, and Despite Fourier's dictates to the contrary, all the phalanxes were conservative in sexual and family relations: within a somewhat freer social atmosphere than Victorian households, the traditional nuclear family still predominated, sex roles were governed by nineteenth-century stereotypes, and children were raised by their parents. (Pitzer 169) Because of the fundamental belief in freedom that prevailed in these communities, society's views concerning marriage could and did color the individuals' own practices, thereby contradicting the fundamental belief in rejecting society.Reform of traditional economics was another unifying factor for the two major theories. Rejection of the dominant capitalist and industrial economy led Owen and Fourier both to more socialist techniques of distributing money. In Owen's proposed villages, all dwellings would be assimilated, food for all of the community would be purchased and prepared by five or six members, and care for all the children would rest on the shoulders of a few members only (Fogarty 41-42). Owen bought a large tract of land for the community he had envisioned and turned over to the members the responsibility of working as compensation for the food they ate and the land they inhabited. Plans did not always run so smoothly, however; as Macdonald points out, "it is certain that there was a proportion of needy and idle persons, who...

Other Papers Like Conflicts In Utopia

1032 words - 5 pages
. We still have trappings of an utterly violent prone tribal society where most of conflicts simmer for ages with no solutions at sight and yet we talk of an ideal state. Can we have the so called ideal state with so many criminals and people having no clue, sitting at top and making a huge mess of every thing they lay their hands on?
As a nation still in the process of developing itself, it would perhaps be very premature to let go of the

1714 words - 7 pages
a revolution. However, the war alone brought out so many problems for the revolutionaries and for the government and Kaiser that ‘revolution from below’ occurred. It highlighted, created and exacerbated problems in society, and the revolutionaries were able to use the war climate to their advantage and create a change and a possible utopia for the people. If there had been no war, the revolutionaries would not have had a haven for people to turn to as a haven would not have been need. Therefore, the German revolution was purely a result of the failure in the First World War

2015 words - 9 pages
attempted to implement a system which was too idealistic and could not work, given the reality and the trends in human society and the world. Malia ( 1993) states that “… what the Soviets were trying to accomplish was from the very beginning impossible.” (Malia, 1993, p.80)
In essence the central and historical aim of the communist ideology was to achieve a form of social and ideological utopia, which would bring about the end of history and resolve

5237 words - 21 pages
social influences, training, education, and the like. The exogeneity of tastes (preferences) in this model is the major distinction from Homo sociologicus, in which tastes are taken as partially or even totally determined by the societal environment (see below).
Further critics, learning from the broadly-defined psychoanalytic tradition, criticize the Homo economicus model as ignoring the inner conflicts that real-world individuals suffer, as

2494 words - 10 pages
’ as a society could not exist without it. (John J. Macionis & Ken Plummer, 2005)
In contrast, Marxism’s founder Karl Marx (1818- 1883) was the first sociologist to highlight the conflicts within society. The point of his work was to provide an understanding of the nature of capitalism in order that people could regain control of their lives. He stated: “The philosophers have only interpreted the world, the point however; is to change it

2010 words - 9 pages
, and the political party of interest is ousted from power, the bureaucrat might find it difficult adapting to the new leader as they will differ in policies and ideals. This will lead to conflicts in the administration as the bureaucrat seeks to protect self-interests and political ideals which leads them to push for policies, not for the good of the people, but own self-interests like outwitting the other political party and not responding to

2682 words - 11 pages
conflicts in colonist-Native American relations, and those between the European colonizing nations themselves.
Just over two centuries before the February 1704 attack at Deerfield, many European countries, including Spain, England, and France, began to establish colonies in the Americas. The motives for emigrating varied. Due to several factors, including overpopulation, industrialization, and enclosure laws, many people could barely earn

5224 words - 21 pages
complex in the world itself and the ideas came out from the conflict; they
were result of the conflict and not the cause. They believed that the main conflicts in the world were
social ones and will finally produce a synthesis where no more conflicts are left and history becomes to an
end. This will lead to the dissolution of the state. Marx also realized that divine rights (kings) at the time
of France and England, were replaced by human

2141 words - 9 pages
adopted by the states to become the Bill of Rights in 1791. As defined by our U.S. Constitution, the first amendment states “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercises thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances”. (Jordan, 1999)
The first precept addressed in the

2348 words - 10 pages
On June 7, 1998, 49-year-old James Byrd Jr. of Texas accepted a ride from three white men, who then beat him severely, urinated on him, chained him by his ankles to the back of their pick-up truck, dragged him for three miles into the countryside, and dumped his corpse in front of an African-American cemetery (Graczyk). A little over a year later, a jury sentenced ring leader John King to death by lethal injection (“Man Executed for Dragging

2140 words - 9 pages
Rational Emotional Behavior Therapy Case Study of Sarah:
A Conceptualization and Treatment Plan
Rational emotive behavior therapy, REBT, was developed by Albert Ellis and holds the central belief that the events in our lives do not cause our disturbances but that they are instead caused by our view of the events (Murdock, 2009). Murdock (2009) states that “people are seen as responsible for their behavior” (p. 279) but, because they are

Related Essays

836 words - 4 pages
20 October 2011
A utopian society is a society that is known as an imaginary society because it has always failed and in the past it was also introduced by a book called Utopia by Sir Thomas More . First of all, a utopia is known as a perfect society , ideal place or state that is socially perfect, and is also politically perfect. The most popular attempt at a utopian society was known as Brook Farm, but it quickly fell over a year due to

1291 words - 6 pages
doing anything that is harmful and against the secular law (Luther, 9).
While Utopia is portrayed as the perfect society, a set of rules and regulations has to be in place in order for the “perfect society” to be perfect. Utopia isn’t made up of perfect people, it’s made up of people that follow strict rules to suppress human nature and achieve the perfect society. If More had an optimistic view of human nature, he would have envisioned the

1214 words - 5 pages
destitution, in which its inhabitants are substantially lacking as human beings. 'Humanity' in these worlds is governed by loss, loss of the 'natural', and loss of spirituality. It is man's obstruction of the natural order, through genetics, that formulate the underpinning conflicts within these two texts.The imagery established in Brave New World, "a squat gray building of only thirty- four stories high" present us with a society that has built

916 words - 4 pages
believe romance to be very important; and also value and believe it is critical to sharing ideas, views and life. That is one of the reason they think art, music, and culture are beautiful, as they romanticized life. For example, Queen Elizabeth I proved these characteristics of women. During Queen Elizabeths reign, there was peace in England even from all the chaos caused by conflicts between Protestants and Catholics. Not only did she value peace